Holland Land Office Museum

This morning, Pat Weissend was kind enough to show me some of what they've got over at the Holland Land Office Museum, where he serves as the director. I took a video camera and we stepped out onto the cold stone floor of the wood-walled museum addition that houses the 14-foot gibbet — a variation on the gallows. He tells me that the hangman's noose is the most popular artifact at the museum — no surprise, I guess, when you consider the morbid curiosity of children big and small.

This video will be the first in a (hopefully) long series of discovery-style episodes over at the museum, where they have thousands of other artifacts to scope and get the story on. So be sure to tune in regularly and keep an eye out for those. We'll try and get a new one up every couple weeks or so. In the meantime, and without further ado, The Batavian presents: The Hangman's Noose.

Visit the museum's Web site for more information, and to access links to Pat's podcasts on history. Or just head over to 131 W. Main St. and check out the collection.

Finally paid a visit to the Holland Land Office Museum on Main Street this afternoon. Ron Pinney was kind enough to take me around and show me some of the artifacts they've got on display there. He told me about the corkscrew as big as a cat that the colonials used to unplug lumps of dried fruit from a barrel. He showed me the dentist chair and the rusty metal tooth-yanker that made us both wince. 

Pat Weissend came out and introduced himself, too. He's the museum's director, and a bit of an online experimenter himself. He has been filing podcasts all about the museum and its goodies for some time now. There's one about the infamous anti-Mason William Morgan. Another about the Seneca Chief Red Jacket. Even a quick three-minute episode called: "Where did the name Batavia come from?" Check it out if you want to find out.

Tune into The Batavian next Friday for a video tour of the Holland Land Office Museum, led by Pat Weissend. In the meantime, here are a few photographs I snapped while I was there today. Maybe you can figure out what they are.